How to Survive Summer Break with your Kids and Enjoy it!

Summer break with my kids is about to overtake me! Don’t get me wrong; I love having my kids home, but three months of constant togetherness kind of frightens me a bit after the quiet mornings of the school year. I have had the me-time I have so longed for this year for the first time since I became a mother almost 14 years ago! I cherish every minute of peace and productivity while my girls are at school, BUT, that is about to end in less than two weeks! Every time I think about it, my heart freezes for a split second before my mind jumps into panic mode.

Recently, as I was contemplating what in the world I can do to make the most of this summer with my girls, I had a few ideas pop into my head that I feel are share-worthy. So, without further ado, let’s dive right into the details!

I love cheery and cute printables to hang on my fridge or wall, so I decided to create a few to keep our summer organized. I hope you will find them useful as well!

The first printable is a daily summer chore schedule. I have one washing machine and it seems like it is always running! So to cut down on family members all needing to wash their clothes on the same day, we use a laundry schedule.

Each child has a designated laundry day, and I expect each of my girls (except for my 1st grader) to do their own laundry once a week. I still help them along, but they are responsible for getting it done. I do my laundry with my husband’s, so that leaves us with an extra time slot for towels, sheets, rugs, etc. on their own day.

As for the cleaning section of the schedule, I like to do one major chore each weekday and take the weekends off! For example, I have scheduled menu and grocery list making for Sundays, bathrooms and grocery shopping on Mondays, vacuuming on Tuesdays, mopping on Wednesdays and dusting on Thursdays. That leaves Fridays and Saturdays free for fun (and catching up)!

I do maintenance chores on a daily basis, such as sweeping and dishes, so I don’t feel that warrants a space on my schedule.

Surviving the summer with kids and enjoying it requires a bit of planning for me. If I don’t take the forethought to plan fun activities, they always seem to get pushed aside by little things I need to do.

An important part of planning fun for me is to have a list of doable ideas, ready to consult when we have free time. I am a list-maker at heart, and love the comfort of having a well-laid plan. Making this summer fun bucket list was just what I needed to help me face the fear of summer togetherness, haha!

Having fun with the family isn’t cheap, so I’ve also put together a summer fun budget to help eliminate some of the stress that falls on our shoulders as parents when we do fun activities together.

We live in a rural town without a movie theater. Taking my family to a movie requires some planning. Driving there – one hour there, one hour back and about $15 in gas, movie – $47 ($8.50/per person for 4 people age 13 and up plus $6.50/person for 2 children under 12), snacks at the movie – we don’t do this, but if we did, it would be at least $3/person for a family of 6 = $18 (or more). And since we are gone at least 4 hours if we go to a movie, we often want to get dinner before or afterward, costing about $5/person if we hit a fast food restaurant for another $30! So, taking my family to a movie runs us anywhere from $92-$111!!! Thankfully, we have an awesome television, so most of the time, we wait for a movie to leave the theaters and either rent them at a Redbox, or on demand.

Needless to say, having a budget for “fun” is a must for us! It’s great to have all your fun ideas written down with the estimated cost, so if you’re having a tight week, you can choose something that doesn’t cost much to do, and still have fun together as a family. It is SO IMPORTANT to build great memories with our families through fun times together

Now that I have a few lists to help me organize our summer together, I feel a lot calmer about these last two weeks of school wrapping up. If you have some fun plans for the summer, or any other great ideas you use to help organize your activities, please share them in the comment section below. Let’s help each other out so we can all have the best summer possible!

And don’t forget to grab your free summer fun printable pack below!

Make it a great summer!

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I love the bucket list idea for summer! I was thinking of doing something like this to survive our summer at home too. There are lots of fun things to do and it can be overwhelming to think of something day of … So nice to have a list to reference

Haha, we are definitely on the same wavelength:) Love your printables, great job! We made a bucket list last summer in my bullet journal and actually managed to cross most of them off, so I need to remember to do that again! Even simple things like “blow bubbles” and “draw outside with chalk” are great to put on there to remind kids there’s always something to do!